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Survey on single board computer clusters and their applications

I'm pleased that the FRμIT project's survey paper on commodity single board computer clusters and their applications has been accepted for publication in the Future Generation Computer Systems journal. This paper is available online now, and will appear in print in December 2018.

The paper surveys use cases driving the growing use of clusters of single board computers, examines some trends in future hardware developments, and discusses the potential of such clusters as a disruptive technology. Compared to traditional clusters, single board computer clusters have smaller footprint, lower-cost, and lower power requirements. This enables different models of deployment - particularly outside traditional data centre environments, as part of the Internet-of-Things, sensor networks, and the like. We discuss the applicability of existing software and management infrastructure to such deployment scenarios, and anticipate the next generation of single board computer clusters and their management challenges.